Derwentwater's Farewell

DESCRIPTION: "Farewell to pleasant Dilston Hall, my father's ancient seat, A stranger now must call thee his." The singer bids farewell to his friends, to Tyne, to his steed. He must die in London, but asks to be buried in Northumberland
AUTHOR: Robert Surtees?
EARLIEST DATE: 1821 (Hogg-JacobiteRelicsOfScotlandVol2)
KEYWORDS: Jacobites execution burial farewell
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1715 - the 1715 Jacobite rebellion
Sept. 1715 - Warrant issued for Derwentwater's arrest. He responds by openly going into revolt
Nov. 14, 1715 - Derwentwater and his comrades forced to surrender
Feb 24, 1716 - Execution of Derwentwater at the age of (probably) 26
FOUND IN: Britain(England(North),Scotland)
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Hogg-JacobiteRelicsOfScotlandVol2 11, "Lord Derwentwater's Good-night" (1 text, 1 tune)
Stokoe/Reay-SongsAndBalladsOfNorthernEngland, pp. 4-5, "Derwentwater's Farewell" (1 text, 1 tune)
DT 208, DRWNTFRW*
Roud #2616
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Lord Derwentwater" [Child 208] (subject)
cf. "Derwentwater" (subject; tune according to Hogg-JacobiteRelicsOfScotlandVol2)
NOTES [151 words]: Stokoe reports that "there is more than a suspicion that it was the offspring of the facile pen of the late Robert Surtees of Mainsforth, although he presented it to his friend and correspondent, Sir Walter Scott, as a poem of the period to which it refers; and it was inserted, on Scott's recomendation, in James Hogg's Jacobite Relics of Scotland in 1819."
For all that it is a false folksong, it's fairly effective as a lament for one slain far from home.
There is a certain tendency, which is quite understandable, to confuse this with "Lord Derwentwater," but the forms of the two pieces are clearly distinct. For historical background on Derwentwater, see the Child ballad. - RBW
Hogg-JacobiteRelicsOfScotlandVol2: "I had this song from my esteemed friend, Robert Surtees, esquire of Mainsforth. The copy was on an old half sheet of paper apparently in the hand-writing of a boarding-school miss." - BS
Last updated in version 2.4
File: Sto004

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